Jim, My experience has been your issue #3. In fact, I have print credits out that still have not been used from over 1 month ago. I will have to see how the events work for me. If it helps, I will post my experience.

I also think the T&I and the action shots are different markets. The online only T&I probably works better than the online action.

Originally Posted by MomaZunk Jim, My experience has been your issue #3.

I'm sure your business has suffered from all 3. #2 and #3 are simply beyond your control in the online model. As for issue #1, it's youth sports, and lets face it, many kids are simply not going to create the fantasy photograph, especially in Baseball. You could do everything right and the kid will either not produce, or actually ruin an otherwise perfect shot.

I also think the T&I and the action shots are different markets. The online only T&I probably works better than the online action.

Other way around. How are you going to set up a pay-in-advance business model for action shots? No way you can guarantee a thrilling action shot of every player that pays.

Group photography is about 90% of my business. I too have searched for order forms, and you can order those with envelopes attached, but to me that makes me look like the school photographer and they come to me because they don't like the other photographer. Because my packages and prices are unique to me, I decided I had to make my own. I couldn't get everything I wanted in Excel or Word, so I used photoshop. I ended up just making a few of my price sheets and laminating them, then making a ton of generic order forms.
It's interesting to hear everyone else's take on selling online. I personally don't because once the parents walk out the door, half of them forget or they have time to think and decide they don't have the money. Gotta love those impulse buyers! My real reasoning is the same reason I don't take credit cards, it costs too much. On a shoot that I make $20K on, that 3 percent adds up to quite a chunk of change!

Originally Posted by Bellableu I personally don't because once the parents walk out the door, half of them forget or they have time to think and decide they don't have the money. Gotta love those impulse buyers!

Yep, that has been my experience as well.
Online is a great excuse for many people NOT to buy.

My real reasoning is the same reason I don't take credit cards, it costs too much. On a shoot that I make $20K on, that 3 percent adds up to quite a chunk of change!

I pay half of that fee. Seems odd that I can get that rate here and you are paing double where the market is probably 10 times more competitive and you seem to be making about 4 time or more what I do on a T&I. I'd definatly be shopping round and playing the banks off against each other for a lower rate. That's what I did.

At the end of the day, I wou;d easy loose more than 5% of my sales if I didn't take CC's. About 90% of the sales we make are paid on card. I also think people tend to spend more on the card when they can pay for it later and not see the actual cash being handed over.
Don't know about other places but it's VERY rare anyone ever gets paid cash here anymore. It's all direct deposited into your bank account. No DD, no job basically People pay for Coffee and a Muffin here on CC and it dosen't raise an eyebrow.

Many people just don't carry more than about $20 now and the cash they get is when they buy something else on CC . I have actually ordered a 2nd CC machine to cope with the customer throughput I'll have for jobs coming up.

For me the fees are a much smaller loss than not taking CC at all.